§ SIR EDWARD J. REEDasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is the intention of the Admiralty to apply any additional armour to Her Majesty's Ships Ajax, Agamemnon, Colossus, Edinburgh, Collingwood, Rodney, Howe, Anson, Benbow, Camperdown, Impérieuse, and Warspite, for the purpose of protecting them against the fire of machine guns?
§ SIR THOMAS BRASSEYThe Board of Admiralty have not decided to apply additional armour to the ships enumerated by the hon. Member. Various suggestions connected with the armour and armaments of these ships have been submitted from time to time by the professional officers, and they are receiving most careful consideration.
§ SIR EDWARD J. REEDIn consequence of the unsatisfactory answer I have received I will repeat the Question shortly. The hon. Member then asked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether his attention has been called to that portion of the Report of the 1871 Committee on Designs, in which they refer to so-called citadel ships with un-armoured ends—
Constructed on a cellular system, or containing some buoyant substance such, as cork,and say—in the absence of any practical experience of the effect of large shells or torpedoes upon such a structure as that which we have in view, it is impossible to say with confidence that the object aimed at would be thus attained, but, if it were, consequences of so much importance and value would follow that we think it right to indicate this line of inquiry as worthy of experimental investigation;whether he is aware that the Director of Naval Construction in 1877 expressed his full agreement with that part of the Committee's Report; whether the experimental investigation thus recommended has ever been made; if not, whether it is true that, notwithstanding the strongly expressed opinion of the Committee on Designs and of our own Chief Professional Adviser that— 1160It is impossible to say with confidence that the object aimed at would be thus attained,the Board of Admiralty have proceeded with the construction of such ships, to the exclusion of all other armoured ships, until the total expenditure upon them which has been made or undertaken has exceeded the sum of seven millions sterling, exclusive of the cost of their armaments and stores; and, whether the Admiralty propose, before further ships of this kind are recommended to Parliament, to carry out the experimental investigation so strongly recommended by the Committee on Designs and by the Director of Naval Construction?
§ SIR THOMAS BRASSEYThe question of the shipbuilding policy of the Admiralty during many years involves so much controversial matter, and would require so much explanatory statement in order to deal with it properly, that I venture to submit to the general sense of the House that the hon. Member would do better to place his views before Parliament in the form of a Motion, or to bring them forward upon the Navy Estimates.
§ SIR EDWARD J. REEDAs my Question relates purely to matters of historical fact I shall repeat it this day week.